Before He Kills Again (DC Cassie Rowan #1) by Margaret Murphy
Genre: Crime fiction, Crime thriller, Police procedural
Read: 9th August 2021
Published: 16th July 2020
★★★ 3 stars
DESCRIPTION:
CAN CASSIE STOP A SERIAL PREDATOR BEFORE HE KILLS AGAIN?
A serial predator on the prowl in Liverpool. Seven victims so far. And he’s already chosen his next one.
The police can’t catch him. He leaves no trace. No one has been able to provide a reliable description.
Detective Cassie Rowan goes undercover in a dangerous game of cat and mouse through the teeming backstreets of Liverpool. But how long will it be before he turns the tables and begins hunting her?
ONE OF THE ABSOLUTE MUST-READ PSYCHOLOGICAL CRIME THRILLERS OF 2020
This thrilling new novel from bestselling author Margaret Murphy will keep you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. If you like Patricia Gibney, Lisa Regan, Robert Dugoni, Angela Marsons and Rachel Abbott, you’ll love BEFORE HE KILLS AGAIN.
MEET DETECTIVE CASSIE ROWAN
DC CASSIE ROWAN is a young policewoman who has been the main carer for her younger brother, Neil, since their parents died. She has to balance this role with her demanding job. She is working undercover on the streets of Liverpool trying to find the ‘Furman’, a man who has been brutally assaulting sex workers. Cassie blames herself and another detective, Wicks, for not catching him sooner. Forensic scientist Dr Ian Chan is on her side, but her boss Detective Chief Inspector Pat Warman thinks she is uncooperative and needs to work as part of a team.
MY REVIEW:
A brand new series and an intense read featuring DC Cassie Rowan, a no-nonsense copper on the streets of Liverpool, taking no prisoners with the villains or her colleagues. Also featured is psychiatrist Dr Alan Palmer whose clients may or may not fit the profile of the person the police are searching for.
DC Cassie Rowan is young but a bright detective with a promising future. She's had a difficult past when her parents were killed in a car accident several years before and she took over the care of her then ten year old brother Neil so he wouldn't go into care. Their older brother Alex was co-parenting with her until he got a job offer in New York and four weeks after that he was gone. Now her brother is 15 and going through the usual teenage angst issues which Cassie must now face alone with Alex now so far away.
As if parenting her 15 year old brother isn't enough, Cassie must also contend with the childish antics of her colleagues when they would much rather be sitting in a cosy warm car taking bets on her ability to catch a suspect on her own when they should be backing her up with assistance. When the suspect escapes her clutches, but not without some fight, it's Cassie who is in the firing line from her superiors and not the boys who should have been having her back.
The suspect that had absconded but may well have been caught had DCs Wicks and Finch been assisting her was wanted in connection with a string of serial rapes that have taken place on the streets of Liverpool. He doesn't kill the women...but he abducts them, robs, rapes, tortures, strangles them before reviving them to strangle them again and beats them half to death before instructing them to wash down completely and leaving them naked on the city's waste lands. Dubbed the Furman, so far he has only targeted prostitutes which is why Cassie walks the streets dressed in her cheapest get-up to blend in with the rest of the girls. But now that his MO has been exposed, he begins seeking out other innocent young women.
When Emma Hammond is discovered in the same way as the previous victims, Cassie realises he has upped the ante and changed his MO to lower risk victims. And then Penny Kominski, visiting from London, enters the police station hysterical wanting to speak to someone. It turns out she was approached and abducted by someone who did not appear as a threat until it was too late. She managed to escape and took herself to the police station to report the incident. But thus far, any descriptions of the attacker have been vague to say the least, with the suspect wearing a hoodie and scarf masking his features. Cassie knows she must find this attacker before he ups his ante yet again and this time starts killing his victims.
Also featured is Dr Alan Palmer, a psychiatrist with an equally difficult home life. He and his wife are separated and share custody of their 4 year old daughter Lucy after an incident that shattered their family and gave their daughter nightmares. Dr Palmer and his colleague Dr Atherton often share a drink or two swapping stories and case notes on current clients. They become concerned when both have clients who may or may not fit the profile of the serial rapists lurking Liverpool's darkened streets. One of them shows some disturbing behaviour in stalking and keeping track of even his psychiatrist's movements. Are they guilty or simply paranoid?
BEFORE HE KILLS AGAIN is a gritty and intense read that packs a punch or two that will have you second guessing yourself in an attempt to unmask the villain. But what made me want to toss the book in anger many times were the attitudes of the likes of Wicks and the guileless Finch, who really needed to grow a pair. Wicks angered me no end with his lazy arse attitude. Firstly when he was sitting in a comfy cosy car taking bets when he should have been assisting Cassie at the beginning, then again when he failed to own up to his part in why the Furman escaped and then most notably when he flat out refused to believe one of the prostitutes, Tasha, had been raped. Instead he was adamant she had been beaten up by her pimp, of which she has none, because there was no damage to her face...only bruises where they could not be seen. And pimps don't like to damage the merchandise so therefore in Wicks' opinion Tasha was not raped but just beaten up by her pimp. And Finch? That guy really needs to grow a pair and stand up to the bullying tactics of guys like Wicks.
It's the presence of characters like those that make me not want to bother picking up another in the series because honestly I am sick to death of phallus measuring misogynistic detectives. I am tired of angst among the ranks. I want a crime thriller I can enjoy without all the bullshit.
However, if you love your crime thrillers with plenty of punch, gritty and intense...then look no further than BEFORE HE KILLS AGAIN because this one just might be right up your alley. But for me, it was the supporting characters that annoyed me so much I don't wish to rejoin them again.
Recommended for fans of intense and gritty crime thrillers not for the fainthearted.
I would like to thank #MargaretMurphy, #Netgalley and #JoffeBooks for an ARC of #BeforeHeKillsAgain in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
After a string of successful stand-alone novels and a duology featuring Chester-based lawyer, Clara Pascal, Murphy began her first series with The Dispossessed which was followed by Now You See Me, featuring detectives Jeff Rickman, Lee Foster and Naomi Hart. The third in the series will be published in 2020. The Clara Pascal books, Darkness Falls and Weaving Shadows received starred reviews from both Publishers’ Weekly and Booklist in the USA. Writing in Crime Fiction, A Reader's Guide, Barry Forshaw said, 'Margaret Murphy writes with textual immediacy, creating complex plots peopled by sensitively drawn, flawed and believable characters.'
Her novels have garnered critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic with The New York Times describing her prose as "skin-chilling". Short-listed for the First Blood Award and the Crime Writers' Association's "Dagger in the Library", Murphy is the founder of "Murder Squad" – a touring group of crime writers – which celebrated its 20th year in 2020. She is a past Chair of the Crime Writers' Association and Chair of the CWA Debut Dagger; in recognition of her service to the association, she was awarded a "Red Herring".
In June 2013 she published Everyone Lies under the pseudonym of AD Garrett, which received a Publishers Weekly starred review, as did the sequel, Believe No One. Truth Will Out completed the trilogy. Murphy appeared on the BBC Breakfast programme to talk about Everyone Lies and her collaboration with Professor Dave Barclay, a forensic scientist, who advised on the science and forensic aspects of the first two novels.
In 2017, Murphy accomplished a long-held ambition to write a serial killer novel, Splinter In The Blood, which was published under the pen name Ashley Dyer and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly in the US, where it was published by William Morrow. The sequel, The Cutting Room, was released in the USA in June 2019, and in the UK in 2020.
Murphy has been a contributor to both BBC Radio Merseyside's Drive Time and Radio 4's The Message.
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